


aiding and abetting: a peter parker saga

by floweryfran, peterstank



Series: stankyflower verse [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, M/M, also featuring wanda getting the love and age-appropriate friendships she deserves, no steve a hat is not a disguise, peter being done with everyone's shit for twenty minutes, the rogue avengers aka the world's ugliest garden gnomes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23918785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran, https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterstank/pseuds/peterstank
Summary: Bucky Barnes stands in the middle of the produce section at Peter’s local supermarket, staring unblinkingly at the display of oranges like he’s having some kind of a war flashback.“Finding everything okay?”The Winter Soldier starts a little. “Yeah, no, I’m good, just—” he finally glances at Peter and squints. “You don’t even work here, do you?”“No, but I know this place like the back of my hand.” He glances into the mini cart Barnes is pushing, which is full to the brim with junk foods: tootsie pops, cookie dough, Cheerios, and kettle cooked chips. “Have you considered, perhaps, a vegetable?”or:5 times peter parker runs into the rogues separately + the 1 time they work together as a team
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: stankyflower verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1754236
Comments: 272
Kudos: 1671
Collections: ellie marvel fics - read, love of marvel





	aiding and abetting: a peter parker saga

**Author's Note:**

> hey homies we're back at it again at the krispy kreme
> 
> enjoy our brain garbage

I.

Bucky Barnes stands in the middle of the produce section at Peter’s local supermarket, staring unblinkingly at the display of oranges like he’s having some kind of a war flashback. 

“Finding everything okay?”

The Winter Soldier starts a little. “Yeah, no, I’m good, just—” he finally glances at Peter and squints. “You don’t even work here, do you?”

“No, but I know this place like the back of my hand.” He glances into the mini cart Barnes is pushing, which is full to the brim with junk foods: tootsie pops, cookie dough, Cheerios, and kettle cooked chips. “Have you considered, perhaps, a vegetable?”

Barnes snorts. “My roommates aren’t exactly big on the food groups. Do I know you?”

“No, but I know you,” Peter announces cryptically. 

It’s definitely not the sort of thing you want to say to a former assassin, but Barnes just sort of sizes him up with narrowed eyes, probably writing Peter off as a non-threat.

“You gonna turn me in to the authorities?”

_I am the authorities,_ Peter thinks, and shrugs. “You don’t really seem all that dangerous to me, Mr. Barnes—”

“Bucky.”

“ _Bucky,_ ” Peter corrects. “Hi. Peter. Anyway, aside from the cybernetic arm, I’m not concerned. Which, by the way, is just _awesome,_ dude.”

He can literally see the second that it clicks for Barnes. His eyes widen marginally but other than that, there’s no outward reaction; he’s a formerly brainwashed asset of HYDRA, so he knows how to conceal his emotions better than most. 

“Okay,” Barnes says. “So you know. What do you want?”

Peter actually grins at that. “I don’t want anything, I promise. You just looked like you were kind of... spiralling. Thought I’d check and see if you were okay.”

And Peter’s spent enough time around Tony Stark to become fluent in the body language of someone who doesn’t expect to be cared for, who doesn’t see the concern coming and immediately deems themselves unworthy of it. 

Bucky’s lips turn down. His brow furrows as his shoulders sag a little. “I, uh, I’m good. Just trying to figure out how to make an ice box cake.”

Peter raises an eyebrow, so Bucky pulls a folded up piece of paper out of his pocket and hands it over. 

The handwriting is bold and unfamiliar. It reads: 

GROCERY LIST 

_For Sharlotka Cake:_

_-eggs_

_-regular sugar AND powdered sugar_

_-flour_

_-baking powder_

_-birthday candles (I expect you to know how old she’s turning without me having to tell you)_

_-oranges instead of apples (she hates apples for some reason)_

_Other:_

_-a Big Ass Bottle Of Wine_

_-a pint of cookie dough ice cream_

_-oatmeal_

_-tampons_

Peter nods. “Okay. I’ll get the cake stuff, you get everything else, and we’ll meet back here in like ten minutes.”

Barnes blinks. “You’re gonna help me?”

“Yeah, I bake all the time, I can totally figure this out,” he says, rips off the bottom half of the paper for Barnes, and takes the other half for himself. “Be right back.”

* * *

Tony is _so_ gonna kill him.

Peter’s imminent demise only occurs to him the second he steps over the threshold of the house the Rogues are clearly camped out in. It’s empty aside from him and Barnes, but the place is littered with evidence of their occupancy: XBox controllers abandoned on the floor in front of the TV, a few dirty dishes in the sink, textbooks on the kitchen table (along with disassembled gun pieces). Peter even notices a lived-in smell: a handful of different shampoo scents clinging to the furniture, a full trash bag by the sink, a recently-blown-out scented candle.

“They’re all out with Wanda,” Bucky tells him as they unload the groceries. “It’s my job to get everything taken care of before they get back.”

Peter nods slowly, still scanning with wide-eyed fascination. 

“Is that a poster of me?”

Bucky blinks and looks to where Peter is pointing and—yeah, that’s definitely a Spider-Man poster. “Wanda’s a fan,” Bucky says nonchalantly.

“Oh. Uh, cool.”

“So the cake?”

He rips his eyes away from his likeness. “Right. Do you have a springform pan and a basting brush?”

They set to work, and really it isn’t all that hard. Barnes is surprisingly delicate about cracking the eggs and doesn’t even get any shell in the batter. They fold everything in and then sit in front of the oven, watching the cake slowly rise. 

“So Brooklyn, huh?”

A shrug. “It’s where Steve and I grew up. I thought it might...”

He trails off, mouth twisting, but Peter guesses what he meant to say. “You thought it might help you remember stuff?”

Barnes jerks his chin. “It‘s all changed so much, though. Back in my day, there were kids out in the streets, you know? Now they stay inside all day and play Call of Duty.”

Peter frowns. “I bet it’s not easy looking at that sort of thing all the time.” 

“Sam caught on and made Wanda start wearing headphones, so as long as I keep out of the living room when she plays, it’s not so bad.”

Peter nods and picks at his shoelace. “Tony’s trying to get the Accords resolved, you know.”

Barnes finally meets his eyes. “Is he, now?”

“Yeah. I know that you don’t know him all that well—”

A snort. “I knew his old man—”

“Then you _definitely_ don’t know him,” Peter says firmly. “He’s... he cares too much. Like, so much it’s self-destructive and really bad for his health because he’s got a shitbag for a heart and never gets any sleep. I mean, he’s really running on espresso and spite at this point, y’know? But he’s a good person.”

Barnes rests his elbows on the knees of his black jeans. “I believe it.”

“Yeah?”

Another jerky nod. “I’ve run over that day in my head a thousand times. I keep thinking about how he looked in that bunker. He was scared, but I... I was scared, too.”

“Of him?”

“Of _myself,_ ” Barnes corrects gently. “I hate that I did that.”

Peter, who only knows what happened in Siberia because of the suit recording he accidentally stumbled across when clearing out Tony’s server of old files, hangs his head. He thinks for a minute.

“You know it’s not your fault, right? I mean, he doesn’t blame you.”

“How can you know that?”

“Tony’s a smart guy,” Peter says. “Smart enough to know when someone had control over their actions and when they didn’t. _You_ didn’t do it, HYDRA did.”

Barnes turns his downcast gaze back to the cake. “If only the rest of the world thought that way.”

“I think you’d be surprised.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, for reference, my entire AcaDec team has this website dedicated to getting you exonerated. Like, they do fundraisers and make petitions and update it whenever you’re seen in the wild.”

Barnes snorts. “I’m only ever seen if I _want_ to be seen.”

“And we relish in the peckings,” Peter says. “We’re making t-shirts of that last pap pic that was circulating—y’know, the one with you in the sunglasses and cat shirt?”

“Nat made me wear that.”

“Tony has a matching one just like it.”

“Well, at least we know he’s got good taste.”

“I thought you didn’t even pick it.”

“Yeah, but anyone who’s smart enough to keep you under their wing knows what they’re doing.”

Peter can’t help it: he grins, and tries to hide it behind his arms. “I’m not that great.”

“Yeah? You’re the only guy I know that can actually bend my fuckin’ arm behind my head. Well, Steve probably could too, but he wouldn’t.”

“No?”

“He swore me a ‘solemn oath’ to never hurt me again.”

“Pardon?”

Bucky grins. “Nat lit a bunch of candles and made him kneel in front of me and everything. I live with a bunch of crackheads, I swear to God.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing the Avengers are split up then,” Peter muses. “I don’t know if I could handle the chaos of everyone under the same roof.”

Barnes laughs at that. The timer goes off soon after and the cake comes out looking just like Peter remembers—Ben had been a much better baker than May could ever hope to be. The two of them used to work through this old recipe book that belonged to Ben’s grandma. This recipe had been a hit. Still looks good, even if Ben isn’t there to do that stupid thing where he’d blow a kiss at it and say he’d added their secret ingredient: love. 

Barnes seems satisfied with it, anyway. 

“You could stay,” he suggests to Peter. 

Peter bites the inside of his cheek. “I would. I want to. It’s just…”

“The divorce,” Bucky says. “Right. You want me to tell Wanda you said happy birthday?”

“Oh, no need.” Peter pulls out the card he’d snagged at the store and writes: 

_Happy Birthday, Scarlet Witch! If posters of you weren’t probably illegal, I’d put one on my wall._

_Love,_

_Spider-Man_

Bucky’s lip quirks up when he reads the message. He tucks the card away and seals it. “Thanks, Peter. You’re a good kid, you know that?”

“Oh, don’t, my ego is already big enough.” He offers a jaunty salute. “See you around, Sarge!”

He pulls on his mask and jumps out the window.

* * *

II.

Peter will never, ever understand what exactly it is that makes superheroes so sure that a baseball cap is the ultimate disguise. It just makes them look like lumpy mountains trying to hide under a pasta strainer. 

Peter tucks his clipboard under his arm and squeezes the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. This is totally becoming a thing. He didn’t want this to be a thing. He has enough stress in his life already, a foot-long hoagie of stress, and he never liked hoagies. Too much meat. It gets all gluey and stuck in his teeth.

He walks across the cafeteria and leans against the wall, feigning complete comfort. He’s getting good at feigning comfort even though he _never_ actually is. Life is a lumpy fucking mattress. 

“What the _heck,_ man,” Peter deadpans. 

Captain Asshole is leaning against the wall next to him. “Shh,” he says. “I’m undercover.”

Peter smacks his head back against the brick. “In a _homeless shelter?_ For why.”

“For reasons,” Steve replies lowly. 

“Your disguise needs work. No self-respecting New York homeless person would wear a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap. That sold you out the second you walked through the door.”

To Peter’s surprise, Steve snorts. “Well, if you think I’d stoop to wear a fuckin’ Yankees cap, even for a disguise, you’re dead wrong.”

Peter squints at him. “I’m a Mets fan,” he says point-blank. This is his New Yorker litmus test.

Steve tilts his head. “They suck, but they’ve got spirit. If a ball team could win the World Series on the blind support of the fans alone, they’d actually have more than two under their belt.”

Peter nods in approval and holds his hand out. 

Steve shakes it. 

Peter turns back out towards the cafeteria and watches the crowd eat salty lentil soup on shallow spoons, elbow to elbow. “Do you… I mean, like, what’s your mission, dude? Cap. Are you still a Captain, even? Does that go away when you become an outlaw? Never mind, that’s not important right now. Mister America. Do you need help?” Peter brightens considerably. “Oh man, do you need me to help you with your mission or something? Because I can _totally_ do that. I know this place up and down and I know most of the regulars too, so like, if you’re looking for someone— _oh my god is one of these people a secret criminal?”_

“I mean, probably.” Steve shifts. “But no.” 

Peter had never noticed, but Rogers is sort of an awkward dude. Like, he’s so tall and hunky it’s like there’s nowhere for him to stick all the bulk, or like he’s out of practice wearing it. The Michelin Man, but he started out as Gumby. “I’ll be in and out, hopefully. Don’t mean to cause any disorder.”

Peter snorts. “Dude, you’re like the world’s biggest supplier of Disorder. It’ll be easier if you just let me help.”

Steve squints at him for a long moment from under the brim of his hat. “Fine,” he acquiesces, and Peter manages not to fist pump in excitement. “So the thing is, I’m actually looking for a dog.”

Peter blinks. “I think you’d have a better shot finding one of those at the Animal Rescue center, not gonna lie.”

Steve pulls his hat lower over his eyes. “It’s a very specific dog,” he says. “It’s this real asshole of a thing, too. I found it in a dumpster a week or so ago, this Golden Retriever puppy. Poor bastard’s all scummy, always yelping in there, but no one stops to help him. I’ve seen him one more time since, and I think I wanna take him home for the group. Keep up morale.”

Peter grins widely. “You found Gerbil.”

Steve squints in confusion. “No, I—just told you, a dog—”

“No, no: the dog’s _name_ is Gerbil. He keeps running away from the rescue center. Like, he just _loves_ rolling around in trash and—street piss, I guess, or whatever. Must be so used to Brooklyn, he wants to spend all his time exploring.” Peter nods fondly. He’d met the dog during a patrol, but he carries this little plastic baggie of dog treats in his backpack just in case he ever runs into him. “What a stinker.”

Steve looks absolutely miserable.

“What?” Peter demands with a frown. “No one adopted him, I’m sure he’s still around here somewhere.”

“No,” Steve says, wrecked. “Shit. It’s just that we’re gonna be the assholes with a dog named Gerbil.”

Peter raises an eyebrow. 

Steve elaborates. “When we walk him and people ask what his name is, I’m going to have to look them in the eye, under God’s gaze, and say, _Gerbil._ They’re going to think I named my dog _Gerbil._ That’s even worse than when people give their dogs people names. Like Mark, or Paul.”

“I—sorry, but I literally don’t see the problem here. You can just change the name?”

“Oh, no,” Steve says, “you don’t understand. Bucky is going to _love it._ Goddamn it. He’s gonna get him a collar and it’s gonna say _Gerbil._ He’s gonna get him a bowl that says _Gerbil_ on the side. He’s gonna make us all t-shirts with the dog’s face on them and _Gerbil_ written on the backs in cursive.”

Peter can’t help it. He snorts. “That’s your punishment for disguising yourself as a homeless man. God saw you, and he said: _make that bitch suffer.”_

“I’m suffering now,” Steve agrees.

“You do the crime, you do the time,” Peter adds. He’s living. This is amazing.

“Time being done.”

“Maybe next time, you should just like, stick to those morally fibrous ideals you’re supposed to uphold.”

“Kid…” Steve sighs and turns so he’s looking him dead in the eye and, wow, okay, actually, Peter can tell why people follow this guy into the jaws of death or whatever. “I have never met a rule I liked. The people who get to make rules always have their own interests in mind, and that doesn’t fly with me. The only rule I live by? Do what you gotta do—just don’t get caught.”

Peter’s eyes widen. He’s in Nirvana. He’s just experienced complete Enlightenment in this homeless shelter.

Steve claps him on the shoulder. “So, Captain,” he says wryly, “where would we find a sneaky putz of a dog around here?”

Peter’s knees almost give out under the slap, but he stands taller after the hand is gone. “Um,” he scratches an eyebrow. “I might have… an idea.”

* * *

“I totally did not mean for this to happen, I swear.” 

“Did you not think this thing is a little narrow for the human body?” Steve demands tightly. He’s wedged somewhere about halfway down the laundry chute and the mental image of him just dangling there, legs loose and head swiveling on his neck in panic, is almost too much.

“Not everyone has bigass Dorito shoulders, so no,” says Peter. “I fit just fine. May fit fine too, that one time she—uh, had to go down.” Peter does not add that the reason she did was to get _him,_ when he slid down mid-game-of-tag and landed in a rolling laundry cart full of towels.

He leans forward into the chute, careful to keep his feet on the ground, and tries to catch a glimpse of the top of Steve’s head or something. It’s awfully warm and echo-y down there. 

“Crap. I think I’m gonna have to crawl down there and get you loose.”

“I tried pushing the sides apart,” Steve admits. “Must be brick wall behind the metal.”

“Well it’s a good thing I’ve got a very genius, innovative plan that doesn’t include defacing property.” 

He pulls a little squeeze tube of hand cream out of his back pocket, grateful MJ turned him onto carrying it around all the time. Soft hands are the _shit._

Peter presses a palm to the side of the chute and tests to make sure he sticks. He grins when the aluminum pops out of place and back as he moves. This place was put together a few years ago with spit and a prayer but he loves volunteering here. The people are awesome and always super grateful for what little the staff can supply. 

Plus old ladies have the coolest stories. 

He holds the bottle of lotion between his teeth and inches his way down, keeping his eyes peeled so he doesn’t like, end up with his ass on top of Steve’s head. 

“Don’ fart,” Peter pleads, voice muffled around the tube of lotion. “Dat’ would make this the mos’ lethal gas chamber either of us have ever seen.”

“Ha ha,” Steve snaps. “Will you hurry? I have an itch.”

“I bet there’s a cockroach crawlin’ in here jus’ dying to get its little leggies on Steve Rogers’s itch.”

“Oh—motherfucker—are there really cockroaches in here?”

“Mm, prob’ly.” 

He finally reaches Steve and snorts a laugh at this whole situation. What the _fuck_ has his life come to, honestly. 

He lets go of the wall with one hand and pops the cap of the lotion off. 

“Hope you didn’t like this shirt too much,” Peter says, crawling into a position where he can ease the lotion between Steve’s beefy shoulder and the chute wall. 

He rubs some in and sees Steve’s shoulder already starting to loosen in place. 

Peter crawls over Steve’s head and the other guy follows his every move. 

“Hi, how are ya’?” Peter offers conversationally.

“Great,” Steve deadpans. “Really good. Definitely had this pencilled in on my agenda today.”

“It’s just another fun adventure for them to put in your comics,” Peter says. “Oh my god, please let me sell this story, it’ll make _bank.”_

“Captain America and Kid Stick take on the worst villain in comic history: the laundry chute.” 

Peter gets the lotion between Steve’s other shoulder and the siding. 

“Okay. Now, wiggle.”

Steve wiggles. 

He comes unstuck and goes flying straight down the chute at a truly extreme velocity.

“Clench for the landing,” Peter calls down after him, and Steve’s shout of surprise echoes as he falls.

Peter puts the cap back on his lotion and sticks it in his pocket. He starts to crawl down and then smacks his forehead with his hand. “Shit. I totally should’ve recorded that.”

* * *

“We’ve checked the kitchens, the bedrooms, the rec room,” Peter says, ticking each one off on his fingers. “Laundry room, laundry _chute,_ garbage room...”

“Is there anywhere else to look for him?” Steve asks, pressing his thumbs into his temples like he has a headache. He lost his hat in the chute escapade and he looks tired and sad without the shadow of the bride hiding his face.

Peter hums, thinking. He snaps his fingers when it comes to him. He’s so clever. Nancy Drew, who? “Under the porch out back. There’s this little patch of grass. Like, it’s not even enough to be a yard, but we really tried to make this place comfortable for everyone, y’know? So we put a porch up because who doesn’t like a porch?” 

Steve nods as if this makes perfect sense. Peter is endlessly amused by this absolute _grandpa_ of a thirty-something year old dude _._ “I’ve found Gerbil under there at least twice because he likes tearing up the grass. And pooping there.”

“Alright,” Steve nods. “Let’s go check.”

* * *

Gerbil is indeed under the porch. He’s dug this little haf-hole there and he rolls around in the dirt, muddying his coat until he looks more like a Chocolate Lab than Golden Retriever.

Peter is on his belly under the deck, just thin enough to keep from scratching against it as he crawls, hand out, beckoning Gerbil with the promise of a treat and some water. 

Gerbil stares at him for a long moment, tail wagging, before he yips joyfully and jumps right onto Peter’s face, licking and making some weird high-pitched whine of pure joy. 

Peter winces and then laughs aloud, turning his face to keep Gerbil’s probably very dirty tongue from his mouth. “Hi, oh, yes, hi, you little demon dog. Hi, Gerbil. Hi, hi stinky, yes, I’m so happy to see you. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Peter inches out from under the deck backwards and Gerbil mercifully follows, flouncing excitedly. When Peter pulls himself to his knees, Gerbil really goes at him, so Peter carries him like a little baby: head and front paws leaning over his shoulder, the rest of him cradled in Peter’s hands. 

Steve stares at the dog with fond exasperation. “You’re almost more trouble than you’re worth,” he says to it.

“Just imagine the look on your boyfriend’s face when he sees the thing, though.”

Steve tilts his head to the side and squints. Then he grunts as if the image is most pleasing to him but he is a caveman. Peter just relishes in the fact that Steve didn’t actually deny the status of their boyfriendhood.

“Alright, this was great and all, but lunchtime is probably about to end so I should go back inside and, like, clean ladles or something.” He inches Gerbil off his shoulder, giving him one last head pat before handing him off to Steve, dirty and writhing and still making that really weird fucking noise.

“Yeah,” Steve says sadly to the dog. “Buck is gonna love you.” He looks back at Peter. “Thanks, kid. Means a lot to me that you’d help look for him.”

“Well,” Peter shrugs, “when Spider-Man sees a struggling old guy who needs help, he’s not gonna ignore him.”

Steve grins. “Maybe this old guy will be sure to have Spider-Man on speed dial in case he ever needs help again.”

“Or in case Spider-Man wants to come say hi to your awesome weirdo dog,” Peter offers.

Steve nods firmly. “Of course. I’m sure he’d love that. Ah—the dog. And Spider-Man. And the old guy. And—this metaphor is officially too complex for me.”

“Fuck a metaphor,” Peter says firmly. “So I’ll, um, keep my ringer on just in case the call comes.”

Steve gives him a little salute, and a last grin as he goes. Gerbil squirms happily over his shoulder with his tongue lolling.

Peter looks down at the dirt all over his front. “The things I do for you people,” he mutters. Then, “Oh, shit, am I gonna get arrested for aiding and abetting criminals of the law?”

A voice comes from the porch and Peter turns to it in surprise. “We’ve all been there,” says the very wrinkly old woman standing there watching Steve retreat. 

Peter doesn’t recognize her: she’s not a regular. She raises her eyebrows at Peter’s stunned expression. “I won’t tell on you,” she promises. “I’m not a narc.”

Peter squints with the right half of his face, eye half-closed and nose wrinkled. “Cool, thanks. Did you need something?”

“Wanted to get one last look at Captain America before he went,” she tells him.

Peter’s jaw drops to Venezuela.

“What?” says the woman hotly. “Are we supposed to buy that disguise? Who else would walk into a _Brooklyn homeless shelter_ wearing a fuckin’ _vintage Dodgers hat?”_

Peter throws his hands in the air. “I know, right?!”

* * *

III.

Peter is running almost ten minutes late to his first period English class, but it turns out he ends up tearing down the school hallway at light-speed for absolutely nothing. 

Their teacher isn’t even in the classroom yet. 

He lets out a relieved breath. Flash, in the epitome of great timing, chucks a wad of rolled up paper at him. “Ever heard of punctuality, Parker?”

Peter catches the stupid ball on instinct and it’s little things like that—moving with superhuman levels of speed, accidentally revealing that he’s overheard conversations no normal person could (unless they were camped out in the air ducts or something)—that are gonna seriously bite him in the ass one day. 

He tosses it back. “You ever heard of being environmentally friendly?”

“What are you talking about? I was aiming for the trash and I didn’t miss.”

Peter rolls his eyes and drops into his designated chair. Ned leans over. “Mrs. Wilson called out,” he informs Peter. “We’re just waiting on the sub.”

Peter puts a hand on his chest. “Oh, thank sweet Jesus,” he says. “I did _not_ study for that test.”

“Like you’d need to,” MJ pipes up from behind him. Peter grins and leans back to give her an upside-down smile. She pushes his bangs from his eyes and plants a kiss on his forehead. “Hey, idiot. Why are you late?”

“Missed my train.”

Ned snorts. “How’d you even manage that? You do the exact same thing every day.”

“Okay first of all: cold. I shake it up sometimes, I’m not _boring._ Second: May burned the bacon this morning and almost set the apartment on fire, meaning _I_ had to keep our super from killing her, and by that time the seven-thirty was gone so I had to—” he stops himself, and MJ, aware of what he’d been about to say, grins. Peter swallows. “I had to just, like, run really fast.”

“Mm-hmm,” MJ says. 

He’s about to say something else when the classroom door opens to admit their substitute teacher.

Only it’s no teacher. 

It’s another rogue. 

Peter swears under his breath. God, these people are popping up like garden gnomes. Everywhere he turns, there’s another one. How is he supposed to keep convincing Tony that these things just aren’t his fault?!

Natasha Romanoff, dressed in, like, the most cliche teacher outfit she could probably manage—complete with tweed and elbow patches—takes off a pair of cat-eye glasses and smiles at them. “Good morning class, I’m Ms. Rushman. I’ll be filling in for Mrs. Wilson today. Do you guys have any questions before we get started?”

Flash raises his hand. “Yeah, um, is there a _Mr._ Rushman?”

Romanoff smiles like she’s charmed, but there’s also a dangerous gleam in her eye. “Not at the moment, Mr…?”

“Thompson,” Flash says, smiling in return. 

Betty Brant makes a gagging sound from the back row. Peter, for his part, is also suitably disgusted, not to mention completely baffled as to how no one else has recognised her—until he remembers that he’s the only one in this room to have actually met her live and in person, while the rest of them have only seen grainy paparazzi pics and are probably under the false impression that her hair is still red. 

Romanoff takes quick roll. On his name she hesitates. “Mr. Parker,” she calls after a second.

Peter leans back in his chair and folds his arms over his chest. “Here,” he says dryly, when she looks up. “But wishing I wasn’t.”

Her lip twitches the faintest amount. 

She starts on the lesson, which—Peter doesn’t even _want_ to think about how in the fresh fuck she got her hands on Mrs. Wilson’s plan. Like, did she actually set up some kind of online advertisement and bait Peter’s English teacher into hiring her? Worse, did she somehow _get_ Mrs. Wilson sick just to infiltrate his class? And _why?_

Why _him?_ He’s not even that special! He’s really boring, actually, not even cool in the slightest. 

Nat hands out the very test that Peter had been hoping he wouldn’t have to take. It’s twenty questions long with an essay section and covers act 4 of Othello—which, like, Peter is smart, but Shakespeare goes right over his head. There’s too many wherefores and o’er wroughts and particoats. 

When she gets to his desk, she very pointedly does _not_ look him in the eye, and accidentally puts down his quiz face-up.

_Accidentally._ Sure. Yeah. 

Naturally the first thing he does is flip it over, only to find her now familiar hand-writing scrawled in the upper left corner: _stay after class, little spider._

Peter rolls his eyes. He gets started on his quiz. 

Half an hour passes. There’s nothing but the sound of scratching pencils and sighs and the occasional distressed moan, and then, “Time’s up. Mr. Parker, would you collect the tests and bring them to the front, please?”

“It’d be my displeasure,” he says, but gets up and does it anyway. 

He makes sure that his stays on top, upside down, so she can see his scrawled response of: _you suck, you know that?_

The rest of the lesson passes quickly enough. It turns out she actually knows her shit, at least when it comes to the tragedy of Othello. She doesn’t even seem bored when she talks about the stupid handkerchief or how Iago observes people’s weaknesses and insecurities and uses them against them. 

She meets Peter’s eyes. “It’s hard to keep your guard up when you have reasons to trust someone, and that’s how Othello felt about Iago. He was never given any reasons to believe that Iago was anything but an honest, loyal friend. He was a steadfast figure in Othello’s life when everything else was going to complete shit.” She blinks when half the class laughs. “Sorry, did I say shit?”

Ten minutes later the bell rings. Peter’s classmates pack up their things and rush out in a flurry. But he stays behind, just like Nat asked him to, and because Peter always walks with MJ and Ned they’re slow about leaving, too. 

“Mr. Leeds, Ms. Jones, I’d like a moment alone with—”

“It’s cool, they know,” Peter says casually. 

Nat gives him a look. She shuts the door and locks it. MJ and Ned share a confused glance, both sinking back into their seats. 

“So what are you doing here?”

Nat perches on the desk in front of him and swings her legs back and forth. “You gave Wanda a birthday card.”

“I did.”

“You helped bake her cake.”

“Wow, Barnes has a bigger mouth than I thought.”

“Relax, he didn’t blab,” she says. “I have other ways of getting information.”

“Well, you are the Black Widow.”

At that, Ned lets out a choked gasp. He quickly covers his mouth with his hand, but Peter can see him bursting with questions and intrigue.

MJ, for her part, just looks between Peter and Nat with narrowed eyes. 

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Peter points out. “Unless you actually wanna tell me you willingly subjected yourself to an hour and a half of Flash Thompson’s presence for little old me.”

She kicks his shin. “Maybe I missed you.”

“Really? Because you haven’t answered _any_ of my texts.”

“You guys _text?!_ ” Ned demands, at the same time Nat says, “I’ve been busy.”

“Busy having birthday parties and not inviting me.”

Nat laughs. “We’re in the middle of a family dispute, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“I’m a street worker, I don’t count.”

She grins. “You’re Tony’s kid, Peter. You count a lot.”

Ned makes another distressed sound at that. He’s totally about to start hyperventilating. MJ, for her part, is kind of rigid. Peter stifles down his concern for them. “Why are you here, Nat?”

Her shoulders fall. She slips off the desk. “How is Tony?”

Peter shrugs. “The same as he was the last time you asked. Hurt and covering it up. Not sleeping. Trying to distract himself with work.” He pauses. “How is Rogers?”

Nat snorts. “Hurt and covering it up. Not sleeping. Trying to distract himself by blowing up HYDRA cells.” She leans against the desk. “We need to do something. This has gone on way too long, it’s getting ridiculous.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I know.”

“Well, do you have any ideas?”

He rolls his eyes. “I could go off with you guys and pretend to get seriously injured.” Peter hears her push off the desk and he opens his eyes. “That was a _joke,_ Nat.” 

“But it could work.”

“Or I could _actually die,”_ he says. “Or Tony could have a heart attack and then _he’d_ be dead.”

“Not if we do it right,” she says, thinking fast now. “Maybe you don’t have to get hurt at all, maybe we could just stage the whole thing to get him and Steve in a room together.”

“And then what, we just lock them in there until they sort their shit out? I honestly think Tony would rather fling himself into the sun.” 

“Do you see any other options?”

“Well,” he blinks, “ _no._ But like, who’s to say they won’t totally just kill each other when no one is there to mediate?”

“Because they’re just bitter at this point,” she says, scowling. “They’re being _stupid.”_

“So we’ve told them.”

Nat sits down again and massages her temples. “I need vodka.”

“You could climb up the fire escape and get drunk with May again.”

She cracks an eye. “That actually doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”

“I’m full of not-bad ideas.”

Her lip quirks up again. Then her eyes flit to MJ. “You must be Michelle. Peter’s told me a lot about you.”

Peter blushes and, to his surprise, MJ does too. “I—me? You? Him?”

Nat laughs. “He’s completely crazy about you. Sometimes he calls me up just to gush—”

“Okay, thank you!” Peter claps his hands together. “We must away, we’re desperately late for our… free period. But whatever! I have things to do. Call me when you want me to pretend die or whatever.”

Nat grins. “I have to work out the kinks first, but I will.” She accepts the kiss he plants on her cheek and lets him drag MJ and Ned out of the classroom. 

Once they’re a good twelve or so feet away, MJ pushes him to a halt and explodes. “What the hell? What the _hell?!”_

Ned nods vigorously. “Peter, dude, you’re on a _first name basis_ with _Black Widow?”_

“Yeah,” he shrugs. 

They exchange another look. MJ’s hands fly to her hair. “Oh my god. I can’t believe I was within four feet of _Natasha Romanoff_ and all I did was stutter like an idiot. She probably thinks I’m a complete moron now, which is just, like, perfect.”

“Relax,” Peter takes her hand and gently guides her in the direction of the empty band room they usually study in around this time. “She knows tons of good things about you. She’s been wanting to meet you both for a while now, actually, so don’t be surprised if she, like, randomly shows up in your houses or tails you when you go out for coffee or something. It’s just her weird way of making sure you’re okay.”

Ned shakes his head in wonderment. “Your life is fucking _crazy,_ dude.”

“Tell me about it.”

* * *

IV.

Peter has been curled up on the couch next to May for really a rather long time now. 

This, of course, is not a problem at all. He loves May to bits and every second he gets with her is one he appreciates the heck out of, but also… 

Also he’s been helping her swipe on Bumble for at least three hours now and he’s really, really tired of it. At first it was exciting, choosing her pictures and answering her profile questions with his boundless cleverness and wit, but then she started swiping and she has yet to stop. They’ve cleared the entirety of Queens and broadened her distance range to forty miles away, which is probably excessive and maybe a little stupid considering they don’t even own a car to _get_ forty miles away. It doesn’t help that every guy in New York of her general age group looks the same: scruffy beard, flannel shirt, inexcusable footwear decisions. 

Like, he saw snow boots with shorts. He saw Jesus sandals with cargo pants. He saw _Crocs._ With _socks._ And _jorts._

If socks and sandals deserve hell, Crocs and socks should send the perp to the very center of a very Dante-like Inferno, frozen into the center block of ice right beside three-headed Lucifer, watching him chomp on Brutus and Judas and Cassius for the rest of eternity. Which probably isn’t all that great for the digestive health of anyone involved, really, when Peter thinks about it.

Peter suppresses a chill. May swipes left. 

“Wait, wait, I didn’t see,” he protests. “I zoned out. Sorry. My b.”

“Your b,” May agrees. “You snooze, you lose, kid. Besides, it’s my opinion that actually matters.”

Peter leans his chin on her shoulder to watch. “Ugh, gross, swipe left. He’s got a picture holding a fish.” 

They’ve got all the windows open, but a blanket over their laps, and it’s the perfect temperature. He’s really very comfortable and very not at all bored. This is perfect. He’s doing _great._

If he says it enough times, he’s sure he’ll eventually believe it.

May swipes left with a consenting, “I pass on bass.” 

The next guy is decent looking. Blue eyes, blond hair, and: “Oh wow, his biceps.” 

May hums. 

“Never mind, swipe left,” Peter says, scrunching his nose. “Look, he’s wearing a bucket hat in this picture, _and_ it says he doesn’t want pets at all.”

“Peter, honey, how many times do we need to have this discussion? You do not count as a pet, no matter how much of your DNA is actually spider—”

Peter groans. “Bad joke. Old joke. You know it pains me that we don’t have a puppy.”

“I know, sweetie.” May frees a hand from under the blanket to ruffle Peter’s hair. He tolerates it quite politely.

“If we had a dog, he’d be as well behaved as me. He’d even take head rubs just as well as I do.”

“Great, so we’re comparing your intelligence level to that of animals now, too? It was bad enough when it was just your genetic composition you were insecure about. Peter, I might have raised a weird hybrid child, but I certainly didn’t raise a dumbass.”

“I’m gonna go get juice,” Peter announces. “Orange juice. A big tall glass. Enough to knock me out for the night.”

“Wanna get me one too, barkeep?” 

He clambers over the back of the couch, half-dragging the blanket with him. “Didn’t I cut you off two glasses ago?” he asks, collecting their cups from the floor and bringing them to the kitchen.

She snorts. “I’m sorry, who’s the adult here?” 

Peter grins as he opens the fridge and takes out the juice, enjoying the cold air on his face as he shakes the bottle. Spring fucking blows when your AC unit is busted. 

“If I change my first picture do you think I’ll get new choices?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “I’m gonna do the bikini one.”

“Don’t do the bikini one!” Peter yelps. He stops shaking the juice and bolts to the doorway so he can meet May’s eyes. “This is, like, basic dating app protocol. You always save the bikini for pic number two. You intrigue them with your cool glasses and inexplicably flawless skin, and then you hook ‘em with the bathing suit. Easy peasy.”

“Boring snoring,” May counters. “I’m doing it.”

Peter drops his head and shakes it, letting out a long sigh. “I don’t know why I even try with you anymore.”

“Oh!” May exclaims. “Wow, that was fast.”

Peter gives her his Ultra Dramatic, Totally Fed Up grunt.

“Peter, I totally wrangled one!”

“I thought we passed on bass.”

She’s not listening anymore. “Oh my god, he’s cute. Got nice thighs, too. Okay, I’m messaging him. Right now. Immediately.”

“ _What?_ That’s rude, wait for me!”

He fills their glasses and jogs back into the living room. May’s got her legs pulled up to her chest and her phone settled on top of her kneecaps, right up to her nose. She’s hunt-and-peck typing in that endearingly infuriating way she does, tongue poking out of the corner of her lips while she concentrates. 

Peter’s chest goes tight.

He sets their glasses on the coffee table and returns to his spot, but he doesn’t peek this time. That look on her face—he doesn’t want to interrupt it.

May finishes typing and then locks her phone, pressing it face-down on the couch between them. She meets Peter’s eyes and blows a strand of hair from her face, a wry sort of twist to her lips. 

“What, are you not Poké-hunting for humans anymore?” 

“No sir,” May shakes her head decisively. “Not for now. I’m just…” 

“What?” Peter starts to smile and leans closer, crawling clumsily along the couch to settle right up against her side, pressed into her like he’s half his size and a third his age. Her arm holds him tight around the shoulders and he closes his eyes, leaning into the comfort of the lavender oil she always dabs on her neck. 

“Just trying to be optimistic for once,” she says loftily. “Figure I oughta’ be a little positive, right?”

“I think you’re very optimistic, usually,” Peter corrects, “but never about yourself. So, yes. This time, it’s May being optimistic about May.” 

She presses a kiss to the top of his head, then leans forward to grab their juices. Peter takes his and they lift their glasses. 

“To sexy Bumble men,” Peter proclaims.

May laughs out loud, but clinks the rim of his cup so it’s set in stone. “To possibilities,” she adds softly. “Good ones.”

“Great ones!” Peter corrects, rising to his knees. May snorts, steadying his waist with a hand, always so ready to catch him. “The best opportunities ever, for May Parker and May Parker only, because shit if she doesn’t deserve them!”

May mirrors his position with a glint in her eye. She smiles: unhindered, broad, and beautiful, and says, “Shit if I don’t!” 

They clink glasses once more, hook their arms around the other, and toss back their juice in one.

* * *

“I think I should cancel,” May says. The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes deepen when she frowns, and Peter hates it down to his bones. May should never be frowning. 

“ _I_ think you should tell me why you think that,” he counters, crossing his legs. He’s sitting on May’s bed and she’s across from him at the vanity, doing her final makeup check for the third time. 

She catches his gaze in the mirror and tilts her head to the side. “Well, for starters, I’ve never met him in person before. I don’t know what he’s like, except from his texts.” 

“Alright, well, let’s go over the plan for if he’s creepy, but not too creepy,” Peter prompts. “Regular person amounts of creepy. Which is still too much creepy to be allowed, by the way.” 

May’s expression goes dry as she picks up a brush and begins to run it down her curtain of hair. “If it’s normal creepy, I send you a text that just has the letter _X_ in it. You call me and pretend to have an emergency.”

“Won’t be hard for me; I have so much experience with real emergencies to pull from. I hear that’s what makes the best actors so good—hey, maybe I should take up drama!” 

May snorts. “I don’t know if it’s your calling, kid. Besides, you’re dramatic enough in real life. You don’t need another outlet for that.”

They both pause and stare unblinkingly at each other. 

“Alright, so there’s that,” she continues abruptly. “But if he’s _extra_ creepy I’ve got Tony’s little bracelet thing.”

Peter grins. He loves the fact that he isn’t the only one thinking about May’s safety anymore. Tony had come up with the idea for the bracelet months ago, back when he first assembled Peter’s emergency tracker watch, but had never gotten around to putting May’s together because he had this weird anxiety that it would be ugly on account of the fact that he isn’t a jeweler, and that May would be too embarrassed to wear it. (Which is ridiculous, obviously; May has a pair of earrings with beer bottle caps dangling off them because they’re a _homemade memento of the first frat party her and Ben went to together._ Like, Peter gets it, but also: choose a better memento, May. Something less sticky, maybe?) 

Once Peter mentioned the imminent Bumble date to Tony, he’d gotten the bracelet done in about three hours, just as Peter knew he would. He’s not exactly unfamiliar with procrastinating literally _everything_ out of the debilitating fear that he’ll fuck it up irreperably if he touches it.

Wow, ouch, definitely not a Now problem.

He gives himself a little shake and says to May, “It goes with your outfit.”

May lifts her arm and shows it off. “Fucking diamonds, that prick,” she says appreciatively. “I understand that man, and at the same time, don’t get him at all. When he talks Chardonnay, I can follow. Then he starts bringing up karats or kilojoules or Super PACS and I just go back to the Chardonnay so I don’t have to listen.”

Peter snorts. “That’s pretty much how time in the lab goes, too. Either I’m talking and he’s not listening, or he’s talking and I’m not listening, but either way one of us is speaking into the void. Or to FRIDAY, I guess.”

“I’m sure she appreciates it,” May deadpans. She leans closer to the mirror and swipes under her eye, clearing a makeup smudge. 

It’s about then that someone knocks on the door.

For some reason Peter’s stomach turns. At the same second, May glances over her shoulder to really look at him. 

Peter gives her his best reassuring smile. She grimaces in return, and then rises out of the chair with the grace she wears like a shroud. Even in a pair of blocky heels, May is short and lithe, and the sundress she wears reminds Peter so much of the way she used to look before Ben passed that his stomach aches. 

He follows her into the hall but stops before getting to the entryway. Despite what some people might believe, he actually _does_ have enough social awareness to know it would be very weird for his very adult aunt to open the door to her date with her pretty much adult nephew peeking out from behind her. 

He hears May take a breath and her heart rate quicken. Then comes the click of the doorknob turning; the little woosh of May’s breath as she gasps, and finally the low, smooth voice that says, “Well, Miss Parker, aren’t you _just_ as lovely in person.”

Peter freezes as a terrible, _terrible_ pool of absolute _dread_ fills his stomach. 

“Sam!” May greets. “You can—how about you come in for a minute, just while I grab my purse from my room? You can meet my nephew!”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Peter mutters. 

Sam Fucking Wilson: The Fucking Falcon is standing in his foyer wearing a nice, short-sleeved button up and actual oxford shoes.

_Shit._ He has sensible choices in footwear. Peter can’t even dock him points for that, now. 

Peter comes slowly around the corner, pushing his hair from his eyes and doing his best not to rip it straight out from stress. It would probably come out in chunks and tufts, but hey, at least they could use it to make wigs for, like, hairless cats. 

He’s losing it.

Sam catches a glimpse of him and his face breaks into this charming grin, all little gap between his teeth and crinkles next to his nose. Peter wants to punch him, he really does. He’s clinging to that last sour little gummy worm tendril in the pit of his stomach, because without it he’d be okay with this, and that would be bad. He _cannot_ be okay with this.

Wilson is a super strong—buff, really, _wow_ Sam—hero and veteran counselor, if Peter’s eavesdropped correctly. He’s definitely up to the task of keeping May physically safe. Plus he probably knows enough about, like, trauma or whatever to identify problematic behavior from dudes in relationships—so he’ll treat May right. Not to mention Bucky, Steve, and Nat have all given the guy their vouch of confidence just by being friends with him. 

But Sam is still technically super illegal. And besides: Peter really, _really_ tries to keep his work life and his home life separate these days. 

Well, except for Tony, who is somehow both work life and home life and also sort of eternal torture? But, like, in a good way. 

God, Peter is so fucked. He’s so, _so_ fucked. Tony is going to shit his pants and also burst a blood vessel. Maybe throw in a myocardial infarction just for shits and giggles, because he would totally probably do that, especially in a situation like this one.

“Hey, I’m Sam,” Wilson offers, hand out.

Peter takes it, shoving down both the urge to crush his fingers and snark, _yeah, I know, dickbag, I webbed you flat on your ass to a terminal floor in Germany._ Instead, with a truly Herculean amount of self-restraint, he says, “Peter. You get her back by nine or I _will_ come running with the baseball bat.” He jerks his head towards said bat where it stands next to their shoe mat by the door.

May comes hustling back into the room in a flurry, purse on one arm and cardigan laid over the other, glasses slipping down, just in time to see Sam squinting at the bat: cracked along the barrel, a dust-caked handle, Peter’s initials carved into the wood. He and Ben had used it every weekend. A weird, juvenile part of Peter does not want Sam looking at it.

A beat passes.

“Oh, that,” May squeaks. “It’s just—safety, you know. Queens.”

Sam turns back towards her. “Yeah, no, I get it. I’m just imagining you in your little sundress, bludgeoning some criminal’s face in. Or Peter—thing’s as long as his leg. He probably can’t even get it over his head.”

“You’d be surprised,” Peter says. Then he takes May by the shoulders, squeezes her in a tight hug, and mutters urgently in her ear, “ _That’s fucking Falcon the Rogue Avenger holy shit how did you not notice.”_

He pulls away, shoots her an ear to ear grin and a thumbs up, screaming _Be Cool!_ with his eyes. 

May is visibly rocked, looking from Peter to Sam and back again. “Okay. Well. We should probably get going, right?”

“Great,” Peter agrees, clapping sharply. “Go take my aunt somewhere nice, and remember what I said about nine o’clock. I have a mean swing.”

Like a dork, he can’t help laughing at his own stupid pun. Wilson raises his hands placatingly while May rolls her eyes. The irony, blessedly, goes over Sam’s head. On their way out, he shoots Peter a genuine if slightly confused smile, and holds the door for May while they leave.

It closes loudly behind them. 

“What the hell is my life?” 

No one answers. Not even the angry old man spirit that haunts the complex, Larry. Peter sighs. 

* * *

Sam drops May off at eight-forty on the dot. Peter is literally sitting on the other side of the door waiting for their footsteps like a dog. He’s in pajamas, showered and ready for bed because frankly, this ordeal has exhausted him, but he wants to make sure Wilson knows what he’s dealing with: a very protective nephew who will square up for his aunt’s honor, no cap.

Peter opens the door after he’s assumed it’s been long enough for Sam to make a move to kiss May, but not so long that they’ll be, like, swallowing each other’s tongues.

In reality, May has a jacket over her shoulders that definitely isn’t hers, and they’re not even touching. Instead, she’s grinning up at Sam, wide and unrestrained, and Sam looks soft and fond. 

Peter’s stomach rolls. 

At the same time though, weirdly enough, something within him settles.

“Hi!” he says, and they jump. “Hey May, it’s me, your nephew Peter. How about you go inside for a sec? I just want to have a super quick word with Sam.”

May looks from Peter to Sam, squinting, but eventually nods. She takes Sam’s jacket off and hands it to him, then leans up to press a chaste kiss to his cheek before she goes. 

Sam watches her until she’s through the door. 

Peter comes into the hallway, Hello Kitty pants and New York tourist t-shirt and all, and closes the door behind him. He crosses his arms and looks up at Sam.

“Dude,” he says.

That’s all it takes. 

“Ah!” Sam yells, eyes bugging, taking a step back. “You! It’s you! The creepy asshole with the bug eyes! But you’re _—so_ _little!_ ”

Peter points a finger at Sam. “First of all: I am not little. I do not have bug eyes. I took you out once, and I’ll do it again. If you ever lay a finger on her that she—doesn’t—want on her—” Peter cuts off and stands straight, scratching his head. “Wow, this conversation is so weird coming from me.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees plainly. 

“Just like, don’t do anything gross and or terrible to my aunt, okay?”

Sam blinks. “Of course. Shit, man, I wouldn’t—just ’cuz I’m a war criminal doesn’t mean I’m—”

“I’m not implying you are,” Peter interrupts. “But like, I just wanted to make sure. For the sake of my frail, frail sanity.”

The corner of Sam’s lip quirks up. “Would you say your sanity is hanging by a thread?” he says. “Like the thread of a spider web, maybe?”

Peter presses one palm over his eyes and uses the other hand to point down the hallway. “Out.”

Sam snorts a laugh. Peter doesn’t need to uncover his eyes to anticipate the shoulder slap he gets from Sam. Like they’re football players or something, geez, how weird is that.

Before Sam leaves, however, he does add something that surprises Peter. “Thanks for letting me take your aunt out,” he says. “Let her know I’ll call her, and that she’s lucky she’s got such an obnoxious little pissant watching her back.”

Another pat to the shoulder and Sam goes.

He moves his hand to watch Wilson walk down the hallway with a bounce in his step. He keeps staring even after Sam is gone.

May is waiting on the couch when he comes back inside, all expectant and maybe even a little bit smug. 

He manages to stay silent until he sits next to her. He takes a deep breath, slips his hands into hers, waits a moment, and then hollers: “Not only did you have to choose an international war criminal, but you had to go for the _lamest one, May? Really?!”_

She laughs aloud, surprised and bubbly, and that’s all it takes to break the tension. 

Peter leans into her shoulder and laughs with her.

* * *

V.

Peter is hunkered down in the coffee shop nearest his apartment, partially hidden from the public by a wall of textbooks and his laptop screen, when the barista calls out a name. 

“ _Wanda!”_

And like, it’s New York City. There are probably hundreds of people with the name Wanda. But given recent experiences, he’s a little more paranoid these days and finds himself pausing mid-essay to check the handoff plane and—

Yeah. That’s Wanda Maximoff alright. 

She’s not really dressed incognito, but of all the Rogues she probably blends in the easiest. Her hair is loose and covers her face well and she’s wearing a red jacket over a white tank top. No one looks at her twice. Maybe she uses some psychic voodoo powers to make sure of that.

Only, Peter is looking. 

It’s just for a second, but a second is all it takes for their eyes to catch. 

His face heats up and he returns to his essay. What was he writing again? Oh, right, Athena’s role in the Odyssey. Yes: a complete powerhouse of a goddess, helps to develop Odysseus and his son as epic heroes and offers them guidance… 

The bell above the door chimes. MJ and Ned duck in, both looking extremely put out by the heat. Ned plops down across from Peter with a huffed “Hey,” while MJ slides in next to him and kisses his cheek, which then turns into a Real Kiss, which of course makes Ned groan.

“Can you two not be gross for like, two seconds? Please? I’m trying to breathe there.”

MJ kicks his shin. “Don’t be a dick,” she says, and kisses Peter one more time just to prove some kind of a point or something. Whatever, he’s not complaining. Plus she tastes like strawberry chapstick and also he loves her like crazy. 

Ned pulls Peter’s screen down. “You’re only _just_ starting on that essay _now?_ Peter! It’s worth like, half our grade!”

“Yeah, but I took like three espresso shots,” he says, already typing again. “My brain is built up of a million other tiny brains. It’s like a bee hive.”

MJ shakes her head. “I’ve read the Odyssey like eight times, I could write that crap in my sleep. What are you saying, anyway?”

“That Athena is the best Olympian and I love her and want her to adopt me.”

“And that’s why I love _you._ ” She pats his shoulder. “I’m gonna go get a matcha.”

“I love you too, but that shit tastes like grass.”

She snorts and leaves. A beat passes. When Peter finally freezes, he finds that Ned is already staring at him. “Did she just—did _I_ just—?”

Ned shakes his head. “You are literally the most oblivious person on the planet.”

“Oh, _I’m_ oblivious,” Peter counters. “So I suppose you totally noticed her then?”

He jerks his chin to the table parallel and one down from their own, where Wanda Maximoff is highlighting a textbook and frowning at her computer screen. Ned chokes on literally like, air. 

Peter kicks him. “Don’t be obvious.”

“Okay, okay,” he’s quiet for a second. “I don’t think I can be calm about this, oh my god, _Peter—_ ”

Peter swallows back a frustrated banshee screech. “Dude, I swear to the baby Jesus, _shush._ I know what it’s like to not wanna be seen, believe me.”

Ned nods. He fiddles with the sweeteners for a minute and then furtively glances at Maximoff again. “Do you think she looks lonely?”

Peter looks at her too. Then away again. “Yeah, I do.”

“Do you think that _maybe,”_ Ned ventures, “living with a bunch of people twice her age is probably super hard on her, and like, she could probably use some friends her age?”

“...Probably.”

“So _maybe—_ ”

“Ned, if you want to invite her, go invite her.”

“I can’t!”

“Why not?!”

“Because I’m scared!”

Peter’s eyes narrow. “She’s not gonna hurt you, you know. That whole Lagos thing wasn’t her fault.”

“No, I know that,” Ned dismisses immediately. “She’s just so… pretty, and intimidating, and… _so_ awesome.”

MJ comes back with her bright green drink. She takes a long sip from her straw. “Who’s awesome?”

Peter beams up at her. “You.”

MJ rolls her eyes and sits next to him again. She smells like chamomile and it’s so distracting but he is _not_ about to complain, even when she rests her chin on his shoulder and wraps her arms around his stomach. 

He fucks up a few sentences and then says, “Yeah, I can’t write with you reading over my shoulder like that.”

“What, do I make you nervous?”

“Uh, yes? Very much so.”

Her lip quirks up. “That’s some romantic shit right there.”

Ned makes a disgusted noise. “Please spare me. I’m gonna go pee.”

He leaves and so MJ takes his spot to sit opposite Peter. She folds her arms on top of his books and stares at him. At least he can still get his essay done this way, only he can’t stop glancing to his right at Maximoff. 

Eventually MJ follows his gaze. Her eyes widen. “Is that—?”

“Yes.”

“Holy shit.”

“I know.”

Another pause. MJ looks back at him. “She seems lonely.”

“Yes,” he says again. 

Then Peter finishes a paragraph and makes up his mind while doing it. He leans back, bites his lip, and then rises out of the booth. MJ hisses something at him but he’s already moving. 

It takes him clearing his throat to get Maximoff to look up. 

She blinks. “Can I help you?”

How to go about this… 

“You’re Wanda Maximoff.” She tenses a little at that, so he tries to ease up his body language. He doesn’t want her thinking he’s a threat. “I’m Peter Parker.” 

Her head tilts. “You’re Nat’s little spider.”

And Peter suddenly, implicitly just _likes_ Wanda. Maybe it’s because she’s just admitted that Natasha trusts her enough to talk about Peter in front of her, or maybe it’s a result of the almost imperceptible tremble in her hand. _Or_ maybe it’s just because Wanda calls Natasha _Nat,_ something so short and sharp, only it sounds almost delicate coming from her mouth with that unplaceable accent smoothing every edge. 

Whatever it is, it makes Peter stand a little taller. His shoulders loosen and he grins. “Does she really call me that? Never mind, don’t answer that, of course she does. Can I sit? No—sorry, actually, I came to ask if _you_ wanted to sit. With me. And my friends.”

He turns a little so she can catch a glimpse of his table: MJ and a newly returned Ned staring and then quickly fumbling to bury their noses in his books. 

“They’re awkward but they mean well, I promise.”

“And why would I want to sit?” Wanda asks—not rudely, per se, more genuinely curious than anything else. 

“I have Skittles.”

She starts packing her things to move over.

* * *

“So what do you, like, do?”

Wanda shrugs. She’s telepathically stirring her tea and Peter gently adjusts the angle of his laptop screen so that little fact is harder to glimpse. 

“We play board games, we go on missions. Sometimes Nat takes me to the shooting range because she’s incredibly paranoid and refuses to accept the fact that I don’t need a gun to kill a man.”

MJ nods, lips parted a little. “Go on.”

Wanda smiles a bit. “I don’t know. It’s messy.”

“What, like, because of the Accords?” Ned asks. 

“No. Well, yes, but I meant more like the boys leaving their shoes and ammo everywhere and Nat never cleaning up after herself when she bakes in the middle of the night.”

Peter’s attention is ripped away from his screen. “Nat bakes in the middle of the night?”

“It relieves her stress,” Wanda says. “That was a beautiful cake you made for me, by the way. I’m sorry I didn’t get to thank you.”

“Oh, hey, that’s cool. Bucky did most of the work anyway.”

Wanda ducks her head. Peter gets the feeling she doesn’t exactly like being the centre of attention. He nudges MJ’s ankle. “Would you say that Athena enhances or diminishes Odysseus’ stature?”

“Both,” she replies promptly. “She’s a goddess and tells Odysseus that he should believe in her, right? So in one sense you could say all of his good deeds are just tributes to her. In another sense you could say that she’s helping him because he does good.”

“Wow, your fucking _mind.”_

She grins. “Don’t tell me you’re almost done?”

“Told you: three espresso shots and a bee hive brain. I am Jimmy Neutron in the flesh.”

Wanda’s face scrunches up. “Who is Jimmy Neutron?”

Peter ignores how sad it is that she’s completely oblivious to one of the biggest shows of their childhood and launches into an explanation with Ned. “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius,” he starts. 

“He’s a fifth grader with an IQ of 210,” Ned adds.

“He and his best friends Carl and Sheen—”

“ _And_ their dog Goddard—”

“Are totally the coolest, smartest kids Retroville—”

“He’s a peanut-headed cartoon,” MJ cuts in dryly. “Don’t listen to either of them.”

Peter turns to her open-mouthed. “The _betrayal?”_

MJ shrugs. “That show sucked. Now Kim Possible—that was some shit I could get behind.”

“I don’t know what to say to this,” Peter shakes his head. “I mean, what if it had been me? My IQ is 230. What if I’d been born with a peanut-shaped skull, huh? What then? Stop laughing, it’s not funny!”

But she is laughing, and so are Ned and Wanda. Peter, for all of his complaining, can’t help but grin along with them. 

* * *

They decide to catch a movie after a few hours of studying. It’s night when they leave the shop, but not so late that May will be pissed if he doesn’t get home for a few hours. 

MJ and Ned take the lead and Peter says, “You guys keep walking, we’ll catch up.”

Ned starts to say something in protest, but MJ rolls her eyes and drags him along. 

“How did you know I wanted to talk to you alone?” Wanda asks.

Peter shrugs. “Some people read minds, some people pick up on vibes. I was raised by a hippie, sue me.”

She grins, but it falters. “I just wanted to say sorry. For the airport, I mean, and for… everything since. I know that Rogers and Stark have their own _thing_ going on, but I hate that it’s affecting the rest of us this way. We’re supposed to be a team, you know?”

He nods. “I know. I hate it, too.”

“Do you think that maybe…” she hesitates. “Do you think maybe you and I could be friends anyway?”

He pretends to think about it and laughs when she socks him in the arm. “Yeah, of course we can be friends,” he says. “Besides, what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

Wanda nods as if satisfied with that answer. Then she hugs him and while it’s unexpected, he doesn’t hesitate to hold her back. 

“I like you,” she says as she pulls back. “But I like your girlfriend better. MJ, wait up!”

Peter grins and watches her race to catch up with the others, before following suit himself. 

* * *

+1

_“Fuck, where did they get grenades?”_ Sam yells into the comms. 

Wanda grunts with exertion. _“They have grenades?”_ Peter doesn’t have her in his sightline, but he can see her red glowly magic stuff rising over the tops of the buildings, holding up rubble and flinging cars. 

_“Ooh, kinky,”_ says Bucky.

“Child onboard,” Peter reminds him. “We don’t say that word in front of him.”

_“What, grenade?”_ Bucky asks innocently. 

Peter tosses a rough hunk of concrete at the HYDRA-AIM hybrid whoever asshole magma person he’s fighting. It levels him on the pavement for a moment and Peter relaxes like an idiot, but then the other guy lifts it and crawls out.

“Sonuvabitch,” Peter marvels. “Where’s Aquaman when you need him?”

_“Don’t be stupid, comic superheroes don’t exist,”_ says Sam. 

“I’d even take a good old-fashioned fire extinguisher at this point, frankly,” Peter says, ducking as the man runs at him. He tips forward, tripping over Peter’s shoulder. Peter whips around, crouching into combat position.

_“Clutter on the comms,”_ Steve says tightly. 

Steve, Peter can see. His suit is darker now: an almost-black navy blue. He hasn’t got a shield, but he’s swinging around a gun like a fucking bludgeon and he’s still the biggest, most jacked human ever, which makes him pretty easy to spot.

“Sorry, Steve,” Peter intones with the rest of them. AIM man grabs his boulder again and, once he’s got it at chest level, Peter aims his heel at it, kicking it down with the dude beneath it. He webs both dude and rock to the pavement. “You deserve that,” he snaps at the flattened agent. 

What he does not expect is for the agent’s response to be _bodily exploding_ in the form of a _spray of lava and extreme force._

Peter is thrown, sailing straight through the air until a wall valiantly attempts to stop his trajectory and he crashes through it, a puddle of bricks and limbs and dust.

“Ow,” Peter says.

_“Shit, Spidey, you up?”_

_“That looked awesome.”_

“That man just _exploded,”_ Peter’s mouth says. He can hardly hear it over the ringing in his ears. His whole head feels like what happens when you shake an egg before you break it open because you’re too lazy to scramble it in a bowl before you cook it. He squints down at himself, vision spectacularly blurred. There’s dust hovering in the air around him and he coughs. 

The front of his suit is ripped up. His skin is red and irritated from the heat of the blast. He’s got a deep gash on his thigh, and—

“Oh, shit,” he says. His arm looks like a W. That’s pretty funny, sort of, except also _ouch_. He giggles once but that makes his head thump, so he stops. 

_“Formula must be unstable—”_

_“Shit, almost five years and they still haven’t—?”_

_“Spider-Man, do you copy?”_ cuts through the layered questions.

“Copy what?” Peter says. “My homework? Because that’s _cheating._ We have to do that in the bathroom so a teacher won’t _catch us.”_

_“Holy shit,”_ says one of the voices on the comm line. _“Tony’s gonna kill us all one at a time, with gusto.”_

“Gusto,” Peter says. “Musto. Pusto. Pesto! Mm, pesto.”

_“Peter,”_ comes a voice he hasn’t heard yet. It’s female, and so much sweeter than the other voices. Quieter too, which is nice. _“Due to the injuries you have sustained, I am connecting you to Mister Stark.”_

“Mister Stark!” Peter blurts. “What a guy. He’s so cool and smart.” He lays back flat in the concrete dust. His head is pounding and his arm feels really weird, but this is peaceful. Sunshine streams in through the hole in the wall and it’s _so_ warm out. He swipes his arms through the detritus like he’s making a snow angel.

_“I am so cool and smart, but you only say shit like that when you’re near death,”_ comes Tony’s voice over the comms, and Peter grins automatically. _“What’s up? I’m getting reads on a concussion and a closed fracture in the left arm. Kid, what the fuck?”_

“I think I got ‘sploded,” Peter proclaims.

_“‘Sploded,”_ Tony repeats. _“Alright, I’m coming.”_

Peter frowns. For some reason that makes his heart go really fast. “No,” he says. “No, no, I’m fine. Just a little mixed up, gimme—two seconds, I’ll be so good. Super… super good.”

_“I’m coming, end of story,”_ Tony says firmly. _“You think I’m gonna leave you, alone and injured, fighting a—robot octopus, robot rhino, robot fuckin’ guinea pig, whatever it is this week—you’ve got another thing coming.”_

Peter sits up slowly. “Oh shit,” he says, upon seeing the magma man still very much alive and headed right towards him. His stump of an arm is growing a hand and his crooked neck clicks into place as he runs. 

That’s some Exorcist-level bullcrap. 

_“What shit?”_ Tony says. Peter can hear whirring in the background. _“What shit, kid?”_

_“Spider-Man,”_ another voice says. Steve’s, he makes out. _“Stay put.”_

“That’ll be pretty hard for me,” Peter says to Steve. “No shit,” he adds, for Tony. 

Peter pulls himself clumsily to his feet. His head spins so wildly that he has to hunch over and press the fingers of his good arm to the ground, catching his weight. “One sec,” he tells the AIM dude. 

The AIM dude does not wait for Peter to pull himself together. He grabs a pair of bricks and starts lobbing them. 

“ _Dude._ ” Peter frowns under his mask, blinking hard. This concussion isn’t _that_ bad. Like, he’s had worse, but this still sucks major ass. _Major_ ass. Corporal Ass. Captain Ass. Captain _America’s_ ass. 

He takes to the ground, rolling to the nearest wall where he plants his good hand and starts to climb, squinting to keep his vision from rocking. The barrage of voices in his ear is in no way helping him concentrate on the task. He makes it to the ceiling, however, and smugly stares down at the AIM dude. 

“Try and get me now, bitch.” 

The AIM dude hurls a brick up. It would’ve smushed Peter’s head in if he hadn’t managed to veer to the side at the last second. It tears a hole through the ceiling, emanating cracks and rocking the ground beneath Peter’s feet. He careens away from the compromise area, holding his bad arm gingerly against his chest and cursing as pieces of ceiling tumble down loosely. 

“Okay, you might be a total dick, but the Mets could really use you as a pitcher. You should totally rethink your calling.”

Another brick comes flying, but Peter momentarily lets go of the wall with his hand to shoot a web, catching it and slinging it back at the dude. It hits him right in the chest. Peter watches it cave in with a sickening crack for all of like, five seconds before the entire wound glows and the hole patches itself up. 

“How am I supposed to maim you?” Peter whines.

Then, like an avenging angel summoned with the Bat Symbol of Peter’s frustration, Tony comes flying through the gap in the wall. 

“Gasp!” Peter says. Then, to the guy from AIM, “Oh, you’re really screwed now, buddy!”

_“Spider-Man,”_ Tony greets, tinny through the suit but still audibly tight with rage, _“what the fuck is happening? I thought I saw a handful of very dangerous and very illegal criminals out there, but I can’t be sure. Do_ you _have an explanation?”_

“Those are the, um, AIM guys—”

_“You know what I meant.”_

“Can we talk about this later?” Peter asks. His head aches, but mostly the AIM dude is aiming a brick at Tony and that looks very bad. “Also: duck.”

Tony, though totally furious, ducks without question.

Peter lets go of the ceiling with his hand, hanging limply upside down by his feet, and shoots the AIM dude with a thick layer of webbing—enough to leave him looking like a corndog. It’ll probably give them a second before they have to _actually_ subdue him. 

“Do you know how to handle That?” Peter asks, pointing at him and still dangling.

Tony stares at him through the slitted eyes of the suit. _“Yeah.”_

“Okay,” Peter says. “You get rid of him. I’m gonna—”

_“Go sit on the sidelines,”_ Tony orders. _“You’re out. You’re injured as fuck.”_

“I didn’t mean to be,” Peter mumbles petulantly. This whole upside down scenario is not doing good things to his head, which now feels like it’s going to explode, sky-on-Fourth-of-July style. 

_“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”_

Peter thinks on that. “Life is a party, and I? I am the piñata.”

_“Bringing joy and getting hit with bats. Sounds about right. Get down, go hide by the Quinjet. Take the elevator up; don’t climb when you’re like this.”_

“You brought a Quinjet?” 

_“No,”_ Tony says slowly. _“I called Rhodey and he brought a Quinjet, because he is an angel sent from heaven above to protect me and, by proxy, you.”_

“Aw,” Peter is oddly touched. “Can I at least try and beat up some regular not firey bad guys on the way?”

_“No,”_ Tony snaps. _“Don’t be cute.”_

“Impossible,” Peter sniffs. He lets himself down, waits a moment for his brain to Quit Doing That Wiggly Thing, and walks towards the hole in the wall, chin held high. He gives a solid kick to the corndog AIM dude, who throbs with heat as he attempts to burn through Peter’s fireproof webbing. 

Peter climbs through the hole and onto the street, feeling a lot like an admonished puppy. A very dizzy, very pained admonished puppy. Sure, maybe a puppy who was admonished for good reason, but is still rightfully embarrassed by it, because admonishment is rather mortifying.

Once he’s on the street, the black-shrouded figure he identifies as Nat comes running towards him. 

She punches him hard on the shoulder.

“Ow!” he yelps. “Now _both_ of my arms are useless. I’m like a snake but with legs.”

She studies him and then punches him again, though this time it’s more gentle. “Yeah, you’re fine. Come on: Quinjet. I got a message from a certain tin can man that you need a leash or we’ll lose you.”

“Don’t need a leash,” Peter mumbles, but lets Nat take thread his good arm over her shoulders and lead him towards the building the Quinjet is parked on top of.

The streets are mostly clear of combat at this point. Peter is able to pinpoint Sam riding the wind for recon and Wanda’s red magic-y stuff in the air, still moving rubble and clutter out of the way. He thinks he sees Bucky wrangling civilians, but he isn’t sure, since the metal hand is covered with a glove and Peter’s vision is still blurry like he’s wiped a fingerprint smudge over a camera lens.

So it’s pretty much safe now. Peter isn’t keeping Nat from protecting anyone and her arm around his back is definitely helping him stay upright, so he’ll allow it. 

It’s just that the more they walk, the more Peter feels every step send his brain dripping down his spine like Tostitos salsa. When he suddenly becomes very certain he’s gonna blow chunks all down his blistered front, he pulls Nat to a stop.

“Oh,” he says, and a black curtain falls over his vision. He’s out cold.

* * *

When Peter wakes up again, he’s being deposited on a gurney with the help of Steve and Bucky, who don’t exactly look too hot themselves. Well, like, setting aside the fact that they’re probably the two hottest dudes alive.

Steve starts putting Peter’s arm in a sling. “Ow,” he complains once, and Steve is much gentler after that. 

Tony’s partially busted nanobites retract into their housing unit. He goes to the sink and washes his hands all businesslike. To Peter’s right, Wanda hisses when Nat starts applying peroxide to her wounds.

“We need to clean them out,” Nat says gently.

“It stings,” Wanda retorts petulantly. 

It’s right then that Pepper rushes into the lab. “Tony?” She’s still wearing work clothes and looks completely tense until she sees him. “God, what happened?”

Tony shrugs. “We got busted up.”

The we is what prompts her to actually notice the rest of them. Pepper purses her lips. She and Tony have a brief telepathic conversation that Peter is perfectly able to understand and then, like nothing is the matter, Pepper tells him to shove over so she can sterilize. 

“Suture kits?” Nat inquires.

“Same place as always,” Tony says. “Grab like, five.”

She proceeds to rummage through the cabinets and tosses two in Tony and Pepper’s direction. Tony busts one open and plops down in front of Peter. “Hey squirt. You with me?”

“Hmm? Totally. Absolutely not concussed anymore.”

It would be true if his head weren’t pounding like crazy. That coupled with the way his vision is swimming and his ears are ringing makes it, like, a big fat lie. 

Tony glances at Steve. “Can you grab him his pain meds? They’re in the medicine cabinet next to yours.”

Steve nods as he gingerly finishes off with Peter’s arm. Pepper comes over and starts dabbing at the cut on Tony’s neck. “You’re lucky,” she tells him. “An inch or two higher and it would’ve nicked your carotid.”

Tony grunts. He starts cleaning out Peter’s various cuts and scrapes. “Ouch,” Peter hisses. “Owie, ow, _rude—”_

“Don’t be a diva.”

Peter pouts. Steve comes back with the meds and he obediently swallows two of them. The effect is almost instantaneous because they’re like, Ibuprofen on steroids.

“Oh wow,” he blinks, “I always forget how high these make me.”

“Good. I don’t need you to start popping them like candy.”

Peter grimaces when Tony starts on the stitches. Then he grins. “We’re a little suture centipede!” he announces. 

Pepper rolls her eyes. In the same instant, Sam lets out a pained grunt as Bucky and Steve pop his dislocated shoulder back into place. From what Peter can see, he’s also got a nasty, gaping gash on his thigh that they’re gonna have to fix up for him. 

“Did you ever notice how many ways there are to say vagina in Italian?”

Tony’s hands pause at Peter’s eyebrow. “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just ask that.”

“No, seriously,” he starts listing them off, “You’ve got ciornia, topa, sorca, cunnu, fissa, cunigila—”

“I’m literally begging you to stop. Please. You’re not even pronouncing them right.”

“Oh? Enlighten me, Mr. Stark: how does one correctly pronounce The Coochies?”

“I’m not falling for that bait.” 

May bursts into the MedBay right then, looking a little frazzled and still wearing her pink scrubs from work. “Jesus,” she says, rushing for him. “What the hell happened?”

“Nothing! Relax, I am literally 100% fine.”

“Your arm is broken,” May deadpans.

Peter pauses. Blinks. “I’m 98% fine.”

“Oh my _god._ ” 

“Oh, what? _What?_ It’s my left arm, it’s not like I actually need it—”

Tony’s hands pause again. “I’m sorry, did you actually just say with your whole chest that you don’t need both of your arms?” 

“Believe me, kid,” Bucky pipes up, “you want both arms.”

May finally sees Sam and totally flips her shit—and yeah, there’s a tiny part of Peter that’s a little bit resentful she leaves his side, but he’s also glad she’s got someone else to fuss over for a change. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Sam assures her. “Just a little banged up. I’ll probably get a mean scar, though.”

Peter fake gags and Wanda cackles at him. “It’s not funny,” he whines. “I caught them _making out_ on the _couch_ the other day. I was blind for a whole seven hours.”

“There’s no way it’s worse than watching you and MJ suck face,” Wanda says. 

“Um, incorrect. Our love is beautiful. _That_ is a tragedy.”

Wanda shakes her head. “At least you don’t live with Steve and Bucky.”

“Hey!” Bucky snaps. “If I don’t complain when you blast your crappy music, you don’t get to complain about me and my boyfriend.”

Peter and Wanda exchange a look, grinning. “I love it when they openly admit that they’re dating,” he tells her. “It’s the ultimate form of validation. Fourteen year old me would be flipping his shit if he knew his thesis about Captain America and Sergeant Barnes secretly being in love was actually true.” 

Her eyes widen. “You wrote a paper on Steve and Bucky’s hidden love affair?” 

“Yeah. I got an F but it was totally political. Mr. Turk was a _huge_ homophobe.”

Tony moves Peter’s head so he’s looking right at him. “Stop fidgeting, you’re making these turn out crooked.”

“I think it’s just because you’re really bad at this.”

“Do you _want_ me to toss you out onto the streets so you can bleed out like a gutted sewer rat?”

Peter pouts. “ _No.”_

“That’s what I thought. Now relax, you’re almost done.”

* * *

Tony finishes patching Peter up in relative silence, broken only by Sam’s occasional grunting when Steve plucks shrapnel from his leg, or when Nat gently curses in Russian as Wanda returns the favour and fixes her up. 

Peter’s gotten progressively more drowsy as the minutes have passed. It doesn’t help that Tony’s got this whole Dad Energy pulsating off of him that sort of soothes all of Peter’s nerves. He contemplates just slumping his head against Tony’s chest and conking out, but then he’d bleed all over that expensive Italian silk and no one wants that. 

When they’re done, they somehow all end up crowded in the penthouse living room. FRIDAY had graciously ordered Chinese food without telling them, so when the awed delivery boy pops up out of nowhere, Tony kind of craps his pants and then promptly chucks hundreds at him. 

“There’s no way it cost that much,” Peter remarks, digging into a carton of chow mein. 

Tony shrugs. “It’s a reflex, what can I say.”

Nat steals some of Peter’s noodles. He steals some of her rice. She’s perched in front of him on the floor with Wanda’s head in her lap. Someone puts on a movie—probably Sam—and the lights dim slowly until they’re swathed in darkness. 

Peter takes brief advantage of it by scanning the sprawled out members of the team. Steve’s got Bucky right against his chest and they’re both grinning like idiots at the TV. Sam and May are... respectable, Peter supposes, though he wouldn’t be adverse to an inch or two of extra space between them. 

There’s no awkwardness, no tension. Just heartbeats and warmth and soft laughter. 

Peter leans against Tony, who’s sitting right beside him with his arm resting against the back of the couch. “I’m tired,” he mutters. 

Tony brushes Peter’s hair from his eyes. “You can sleep,” he promises. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

So he does, closing his eyes and burrowing deeper into the cushions and pulling Tony’s arm around his chest. It’s definitely not the worst place to crash, anyway. 

**Author's Note:**

> don't forget to like and subscribe and hit that notification bell so you never miss a post! 
> 
> -stankyflower


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